Published: November 16, 2006 03:15 pm         

‘Flight Simulator X’ delivers a wonderful dose of realism

Video game review

The biggest difference between a video game and a simulator? Realism. Video games are meant to entertain, after all. Simulators, on the other hand, are usually educational tools.

A few games, however, manage to do a bit of both. “Flight Simulator X” ($49.99, Rated E, Windows PCs) is a good example: it’s not only fun, you just might learn something.

The vast scope of this Microsoft Corp. game will overwhelm at first, especially if you’ve never played a flight simulator before.

This latest version in the venerable 25-year-old franchise packs a dizzying array of features: there are more aircraft, more airports and more options than ever before.

Beyond the included aircraft, there’s a growing online universe of additional planes and scenery available for download.

The sheer number of airports alone — more than 24,000 worldwide — means you can fly over your neighborhood or some faraway locale with equal ease.

Before you get airborne, there’s an important caveat: “Flight Simulator X” isn’t easy. There’s an excellent series of tutorials to help get you off the ground (and just as importantly, back down again). But it’s still going to take lots of trial and error to get the hang of things.

This is one case where a keyboard or a mouse doesn’t cut it for controls. If you really want to enjoy this game’s more advanced features, you’ll want to invest in a flight stick, which can cost anywhere from $20 to more than $200.

Potentially pricey, yes, but the sensation of flight is so much better, it’s worth the investment long-term.

There are several modes. Free flight mode is just that: pick an aircraft, an airport and other options such as weather, season and time of day, and you’re off in a few minutes.

Special mission modes present some interesting scenarios such as one where you have to land on a moving truck — definitely something for pro pilots only.

In another tricky scenario, I took a Cessna up to 5,000 feet then tried to fly around with the engine turned off.

Graphically, this is as real as it gets. There’s a high level of detail in every location, down to individual plants, moving highway traffic and weather systems.

The tradeoff for all this realism is a massive performance hit. This game will likely tax any computer system: I tested it on a $10,000, specially built gaming computer. Even then, the frame rate often slowed down.

You’ll have to turn off quite a few visual features to get acceptable performance on most home computers.

But when you have a game this packed with features and options, what do you expect? No other title on the market can match the depth of options or the sensation of flight like “Flight Simulator X.”

Three stars out of four.